European Reflections 1: The Great Inversion

I brewed my first batch of beer in 1993 or 4. The Beeronomist and I were in Wisconsin attending grad school, and we hankered for the hoppy ales of Oregon. We trotted down to the Wine and Hop Shop—remarkably, it’s still in business!—pooled our extremely scarce pennies, and bought a kit. As we tried to master the art of boiling malt extract and hops, we slowly became acquainted with a world of foreign beer styles. That was the first time I’d heard the word “bitter” as describes a style, and it seemed tantalizingly familiar, yet somehow inaccessible. It was a word from a novel, as real as a talking rabbit, something we could imagine but didn’t actually understand. I was transfixed by the potential it contained.

Beer was like that back then. Americans had only a tenuous grasp on the beers of the world, and brewers looked to Europe for clues. We might not have known what a bitter was, not really, but we wanted to make one. I sometimes fantasize about a time machine that would take me back to 1990 so I could visit a brewery and experience just how rudimentary those recreations were. (I recall “pilsners” made with ale yeasts. 😬)

BrewDog wasn’t the first American-style British craft brewery, but it was the most American.

Until about a decade ago, Americans looked outward. The whales we hunted then were rare by dint of distance. The more obscure and authentic, the better. Beer sold only on cask in Yorkshire pubs? Bamberg rauchbier? Ale made by monks only available at the monastery? That’s the stuff. As a country, we looked to the places that had mastered their craft, to the breweries that originated styles. We might have admired a clever recreation by our local brewer, but drinking the genuine article was the gold standard. We looked outward because Americans brewers hadn’t developed anything fully American yet. It was an imitative phase, slightly naive, but also one filled with the wonder of discovery. It took twenty years for American craft breweries to fully understand the brewing styles and techniques of other countries and reproduce respectable facsimiles of their beers, and it was an important watershed when they did. Having acquainted themselves with the rules of these traditions, they were ready to start breaking them. That’s the moment our own tradition blossomed.

The dynamic has inverted. Now it is the Europeans who are looking outward. There is a new category of beer on the scene and attendant business model; to countries not used to them, they seem exotic and new. The idea that a regular person could start a small brewery, make any flavor of beer in the world, and find willing customers to drink it—that has been transformational in countries where breweries are either big and faceless or ancient fixtures of continuity. It’s no wonder so many ambitious young people are starting new breweries—it’s the classic disruptive act youth adores. When I stopped into craft breweries in Manchester or Vienna or Kraków, the people sipping coffee stouts and brut IPAs were overwhelmingly young. They wanted to visit the future, not remain stuck in the past.

Brouwerij Roman, one of the oldest breweries in Belgium, makes a dry-hopped pale with Citra, Amarillo, and Simcoe hops.

The excitement around American styles of beer—which are mutated and adapted versions of the European originals—is not surprising, either. For hundreds of years this pattern has repeated itself, as the hot new style, be it hopped ale from Bremen or London porter or Pilsen lager, spread into new markets, displacing older styles. And American hoppy ales are spectacular; as examples of the brewing art goes, good ones are the equal of the classic European styles Americans once revered. No wonder they’re finding a welcome reception elsewhere. (Yes, yes, there is much excess in American brewing now, but look to the best, not the worst—that’s what’s inspiring people.)

Some countries are doing this more avidly than others, and it’s especially strong in places that don’t have native styles or lost them. Poland is embracing American-style craft brewing far faster than Bavaria or Belgium. Or take Berlin: it’s ground zero for German experimentation, and a funny question arose on a recent podcast. Patrick asked to what extent the revival of traditional Berliner weisse could be attributed to Americans? In one sense, none. The beers Ulrike Genz is making at Schneeeule are informed by decades-old processes, and given continuity by the use wild yeast taken from very old bottles. But on the other hand, the idea that a person could just start a brewery to make this style? That may not have happened had American craft brewing never existed.

Of course, these changes mean the US has become far more insular now. I went down to Belmont Station yesterday to pick up some beer for the podcast. It was the first bottle shop in town, and its entire purpose was originally to expose locals to imported beer. Belmont Station outgrew its first location and has gone through a couple expansions since. But though the inventory is bigger than ever, the amount of imports is now tiny and the bottles they do have are often well out of code. Americans just don’t care about European beer anymore. We have developed our own style of brewing, our own category of beer, and the whales now are the rarities produced in obscure places like Tillamook or Greensboro, VT.

What will ultimately emerge is calcification here. People aren’t drinking Belgian tripels anymore, and it’s harder and harder to find locally-brewed examples. The range will thin as IPAs and a few other styles become dominant. That’s how the very specific beer culture in Bamberg and Bruges came to be.

Meanwhile, European craft breweries will mature. The styles they’re brewing now will mutate to serve the tastes of locals. They will grow less interested in recreating a facsimile of American beer, and in their place, something new and local will emerge. And the cycle will continue, as it has forever, perhaps inverting again a half century down the road.

We are never at the end of things. Evolution is constant. We writers and drinkers have to remind ourselves of this as we witness the inevitable change that has been a feature of beer since the start.